Two newspapers confiscated by Sudan security service

The security service in Khartoum confiscated the newspapers El Jareeda and El Wifag after printing yesterday.

The editor-in-chief of El Jareeda, Ashraf Abdelaziz told Radio Dabanga that the national security service (NISS) also summoned him and journalist Hanadi El Siddig on Thursday.

“The reason for the confiscation was a column published in the newspaper entitled ‘Exploitation of Influence’, of employees of the security apparatus.”

Abdelaziz considered the confiscation a restriction of freedoms. “The newspaper suffered great losses because of the confiscations after printing.” Newspapers afford the costs of printing with the sale of advertisements, which are eliminated when the entire issue is confiscated.

FIFA ban

On Thursday, El Zawya sports newspaper issued a statement that the censorship exercised by NISS officials resulted in a full confiscation of the entire print-run on Monday. A series of articles on the front and internal pages were barred from publication by the NISS, because they concerned a sensitive issue in the football world.

Earlier this week, the NISS instructed all Sudanese newspapers and satellite channels not to report on the debacle between the international football association FIFA and the Sudanese government. News was only allowed to be published in accordance with given directives that did not criticise the parties which caused the FIFA to suspend all of Sudan’s international football activities.

The Sudanese Journalists Network released a statement yesterday, claiming that the directive of the NISS came after the failure of the authorities interfering with the law in sports. ‘This is a flagrant intervention towards the competence and democracy of sport. […] the security apparatus directed the editorial departments not to publish any dialogues or articles about the current sports crisis.’

FIFA decided yesterday to lift the suspension of the international football activities of Sudan after the government pledged in writing that it would not interfere again in affairs of the Sudanese FIFA branch, the Sudanese Football Association.